So here's this month's poll map. If you don't care to read through my rambling, Trump wins with 280. But that I don't think is the main story here. Keep in mind I'm just using 538.
One of the most frustrating things I've found is that polling has been extremely selective. Now, given how expensive it is to conduct polls, I suppose I can understand why no one has polled Alabama recently. But things are worse than you'd expect, especially since we've had a change in candidates. I'd like to go through some of the polling, and I'll start with the swing states, west to east.
Nevada: Most recent polls have been 8/2, 8/3, and 8/8. BSG, Redfield & Wilton, and Trafalgar respectively. BSG and Trafalgar has Trump up 3-5. Redfield and Wilton has Harris and Trump tied.
Arizona: Polling on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 8th. Same pollsters as Nevada, except HighGround did the poll on the 5th. All the polls have Harris winning except Trafalgar, which has Trump up by 1.
Minnesota: Just one recent poll, Harris up by 5
Wisconsin: 6 recent polls from this month. 6 of them. The most recent one, Bullfinch Group has Harris up by 9. Bullfinch conducted several recent polls, and the polling over sampled women by 4% and strong Democrats by 2%.
Michigan: Same story as Wisconsin, Harris up by 6. That was Bullfinch.
Virginia: Now here is where things get odd. Most recent Virginia polling? Last July. Yep, no one is polling Virginia. At least none of them are getting published on 538. And oddly, despite that most polling prediction sites have Virginia in the blue column, the most recent polls have Trump winning Virginia. Does that seem odd to anyone?
North Carolina: The state to Virginia's south has 5 recent polls in August. BSG has Harris winning, Redfield and Wilton has Trump winning, as does Trafalgar, and YouGov Blue has the race at even. I think I should note that there's been some criticism of the YouGov Blue poll. It had a local race with the Dem up 10 points when none of the others did.
So I'm running short on time, but there's a few other odd things to point out. The map has Trump winning New Jersey. This is because the last poll for New Jersey was all the way back in JUNE. The most recent 538 polling for Connecticut is from LAST APRIL, and that's only because RFK paid for the polling. No other polls exist for Connecticut for this entire election season on 538. NONE.
Well, that's Connecticut. Of course it'll go blue. Maybe. But the fact of the matter is most of the states on this map is still Trump vs Biden. Now you may think, what does it matter. We know which way Missouri and Oregon will go. But is that the case for all these states? As my home state of Virginia demonstrates, how can we be sure?
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming were all last polled in April. Many others haven't been polled since Biden was still in the race. Now I don't think anyone is going to expect any surprises with these states. But if we knew if the lead either party has in these states have grown or declined, then we could see has the race is evolving. Unfortunately, that data just ain't there. Not on 538 anyway. 
